After grabbing a goal in his first appearance in our number 17 shirt, Oleksandr Zinchenko is hoping that the switch will be a good omen for him in 2024/25.
The Ukrainian international changed the number he always wore as a youngster and still dons for the national team, and it took him just seven minutes to fire in a goal wearing it when he drilled an arrow-like strike into the bottom corner to kick-start our 4-1 win against Bayer Leverkusen.
And Alex is looking to hit top form in the early weeks of the campaign to help us get off to the best possible start, and christen his new number in the best possible way.
When asked if 17 will be a lucky charm, he laughed: “Fingers crossed; I really hope so! To be honest, this number is a special one for me. While I was growing up, I always used to wear it. Fingers crossed, let’s see.
“I’m happy with my goal, but obviously to win every single game is the most important thing and individually as well. I’m just trying to do my job the best way I can. It’s been a really tough season for me, so I’ll try to do my best to bring back this confidence personally and also the love from the fans.
“It was an amazing result. There are still a lot of things to improve, both individually and collectively but it was an amazing performance.”
Alex has been a mainstay of our pre-season campaign so far, and having featured for Ukraine at Euro 2024 he is showing no signs of rustiness after a busy summer.
He feels that is a trait shared within the squad right now, and this performance is a perfect example of that as we put last season’s unbeaten German champion to the sword in front of a packed house. With all that in mind, he’s pleased with how pre-season is going.
“We’re on the way there to pick up our form,” he added. “We’ve worked really hard during this period of time. I think we are really on the right way, but we don’t have enough time to speak about that we are not in form. We just need to switch on and do our best in every single performance that we’re playing.
“It was nice to be back. It’s always an amazing atmosphere here at Emirates Stadium and will be, because the fans are creating an unbelievable atmosphere. The way they support and push us, every single time, it’s amazing. We’re all happy to be here again and let’s do it again on Sunday.”
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
